Pedro Calderón de la Barca in the context of "Roman Catholic priest"

Félix Lope de Vega y Carpio (/dəˈveɪɡə/; 25 November 1562 – 27 August 1635) was a Spanish playwright, poet, and novelist who was a key figure in the Spanish Golden Age (1492–1659) of Baroque literature. In the literature of Spain, Lope de Vega is often considered second only to Miguel de Cervantes. Cervantes said that Lope de Vega was “The Phoenix of Wits” (Fénix de los ingenios) and “Monster of Nature” (Monstruo de naturaleza).

Lope de Vega renewed the literary life of Spanish theatre when it became mass culture, and with the playwrights Pedro Calderón de la Barca and Tirso de Molina defined the characteristics of Spanish Baroque theatre with great insight into the human condition. The literary production of Lope de Vega includes 3,000 sonnets, three novels, four novellas, nine epic poems, and approximately 500 stageplays.

The Spanish Golden Age (Spanish: Siglo de Oro Spanish pronunciation: [ˈsiɣlo ðe ˈoɾo], "Golden Century") was a period that coincided with the political rise of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain and the Spanish Habsburgs, during which arts and literature flourished in Spain. It is associated with the reigns of Isabella I, Ferdinand II, Charles V, Philip II, Philip III, and Philip IV. The Golden Age is generally considered to begin in 1492, marked by the end of the Reconquista, Christopher Columbus’s voyages, and the publication of Antonio de Nebrija's Grammar of the Castilian Language. It ended around 1659 with the Treaty of the Pyrenees, though some extend it to 1681, after the death of Pedro Calderón de la Barca.

The period of cultural flourishing saw major patrons, with El Escorial attracting leading artists including El Greco, contributing to a distinct Spanish style, and also includes the Plateresque/Renaissance and early Spanish Baroque styles, with major figures like Miguel de Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Luis de Góngora, Diego Velázquez, and composers such as Tomás Luis de Victoria and Francisco Guerrero.

Spanish Baroque literature is the literature written in Spain during the Baroque, which occurred during the 17th century in which prose writers such as Baltasar Gracián and Francisco de Quevedo, playwrights such as Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, Calderón de la Barca and Juan Ruiz de Alarcón, or the poetic production of the aforementioned Francisco de Quevedo, Lope de Vega and Luis de Góngora reached their zenith. Spanish Baroque literature is a period of writing which begins approximately with the first works of Luis de Góngora and Lope de Vega, in the 1580s, and continues into the late 17th century.

The fundamental characteristics of Spanish Baroque literature are the progressive complexity in formal resources and a theme centered on the concern for the passage of time and the loss of confidence in the Neoplatonic ideals of the Renaissance. Likewise, the variety and diversity in the subjects dealt with, the attention to detail and the desire to attract a wide audience, of which the rise of the Lope de Vega comedies are an example. From the dominant sensual concern in the 16th century, there was an emphasis on moral values and didactics, where two currents converge: Neostoicism and Neoepicureism. El Criticón from Baltasar Gracián is a point of arrival in the baroque reflection on man and the world, the awareness of disappointment, a vital pessimism and a general crisis of values.

Spanish Golden Age theatre refers to theatre in Spain roughly between 1590 and 1681. Spain emerged as a European power after it was unified by the marriage of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile in 1469 and then claimed for Christianity at the Siege of Granada in 1492. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw a monumental increase in the production of live theatre as well as in the importance of the arts within Spanish society.

Ivan Yakovych Franko PhD (Ukrainian: Іван Якович Франко, pronounced [iˈwɑn ˈjɑkowɪtʃ frɐnˈkɔ]; 27 August 1856 – 28 May 1916) was a Ukrainian poet, writer, social and literary critic, journalist, translator, economist, political activist, ethnographer, and the author of the first detective novels and modern poetry in Ukrainian.

Franko was a political radical, and a founder of the socialist and nationalist movement in Western Ukraine. In addition to his own literary work, he also translated into Ukrainian the works of such renowned figures as William Shakespeare, Lord Byron, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Dante Alighieri, Victor Hugo, Adam Mickiewicz, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller. His translations appeared on the stage of the Ruska Besida Theatre. Along with Taras Shevchenko, he has had a tremendous influence on modern literary and political thought in Ukraine.